


Syncytia

by epistolic



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistolic/pseuds/epistolic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d signed up for Starfleet on an impulse, but Starfleet meant James Tiberius Kirk: the first – <i>and second, and third, and fourth<i> – big mistake of Leonard McCoy’s life.</i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Syncytia

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank-you to Yvonne and Carleen, whose fault this entirely is.

“Hey,” someone hisses. “Hey, Bones, wake up.”

Bones is sitting up in an instant. All those nights on call have taken their toll – he falls asleep in less than a second, is up and running on full power in just as long. He blinks into the dark: a familiar shape looms up above him. He checks his watch. 

He groans. It’s two in the morning. “Jim, for God’s sake.”

“Get up, get up. Come on.” 

Jim has grabbed onto his shoulders. Bones half-heartedly raises a hand, tries to shove him off. 

“What’s your goddamn problem?” he snaps after a while. “Unless the room is on fire or something, I am not about to give up precious hours of my beauty sleep just so you can – what are you doing?”

There’s a palpable thrill in Jim’s voice, like a shot of electricity. “Get dressed.”

“Not without an explanation, I’m not.”

“Or go in your PJs, I don’t really care. Just come _on_ , or we’ll miss it.”

“Miss _what_?”

“The _party_ , Bones.” Jim says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

And then Jim yanks him unceremoniously off the bed.

He stands swaying for a moment on the carpet. Now that his eyes are more used to the dark, he can see Jim more clearly: the sleek silhouette; the bunched up energy beneath it; the muss of his hair and the bright twin pinpricks of his eyes. That old Cheshire cat grin, full of teeth. Jim’s decked out in a leather jacket and jeans, nothing Bones hasn’t seen before, but maybe it’s the lack of sleep – maybe it’s the ungodly hour – maybe Bones is just going slowly but assuredly crazy – whichever it is, he finds himself staring all the same.

Jim gives him a comradely smack on the back and he lurches forward. “Jesus!”

“Stop whining,” Jim tells him pertly. Jim’s still beaming like a lighthouse. “Come on, or we’ll miss all the fun. We’re already late.”

“You’re an asshole,” Bones grumbles as he pats about for his clothes.

Jim grins. Gives him a sloppy salute. “But I’m sure we both already knew that.”

\--

There aren’t really any words for the predicament Bones has gotten himself into.

For the whole of his life up until now, he’s played it safe. He’s taken all of the appropriate steps. He went to medical school, he graduated top of his class; he sent the money back home every week, dutifully. He called his mother. He married the prettiest girl he knew. He treated her right, in his opinion, but obviously that wasn’t _her_ opinion, and he respected that. When they split he gave her almost everything he had: still in love with her, still unable to tell her no.

He’d signed up for Starfleet on an impulse, but even that to some degree had been appropriate. Starfleet meant advancement. Starfleet meant an entirely new world.

Starfleet meant James Tiberius Kirk: the first – _and second, and third, and fourth _– big mistake of Leonard McCoy’s life.__

____

\--

“Stop that.”

Jim, of course, doesn’t stop. Jim, against all sanity and medical advice, has actually managed to clamber out of his bed while heavily doped up on pain medication and is now slanted precariously against Bones’ desk.

“What are you reading?” Jim says. Slurring the vowels just a bit. “Are you _studying_?”

Bones slaps his hands away. “Don’t touch those slides, please, they haven’t set yet.”

“Wow, is that – ”

“Yes,” Bones interrupts huffily, “it is.” 

Jim looks at him with a new respect. “Wow. Bones. Wouldn’t have taken you for a dark horse. Is it Lena? The cute one with the bobbed red hair, right? Wow-ee, she is one hot item. Congrats, man.”

“What?”

“Hey, no need for secrets between us,” Jim says, nodding down at Bones’ textbook.

Bones looks down, uncomprehending. 

Then he understands. 

The back of his neck starts heating up. “For God’s sake, Jim, is that all you think about? I’m doing an obstetrics term. Contrary to popular belief, not every species in this universe has the same reproductive paraphernalia, so as a doctor it’s actually my duty – ”

“Did you just – ” Jim bursts out in incredulous laughter. “Did you just – _paraphernalia_?”

“Oh har har har,” Bones says, sarcastic. He watches as Jim’s laughter catches suddenly: broken ribs still not completely healed. “You’ve had your fun. Now get back to bed before you fall over.”

“I’m not going to fall over. Bones, my friend, you need to get laid.”

“No, I don’t _need_ to get laid,” Bones points out. “What I _need_ is to pass my O &G exam.”

“You know, the problem with you is you don’t make the best of your opportunities. Here I am, crippled and in pain, yada yada, and the _one thing_ that sings out to a girl’s heart is a man injured, you know? Brings out their maternal side.” Jim tilts a hip haphazardly against the back of Bones’ chair; nearly tips them both over onto the floor. “You can _use_ that. Bring us both back a pair of beautiful nurses.”

“I’m not bringing you back anything. Except maybe a stronger sedative.”

“Don’t be a wet blanket.”

“Don’t make me withhold your oxycodone,” Bones threatens. “I’m starting to think that you might be less of a nuisance if you’re left howling in excruciating pain on the bed.”

“I knew it,” Jim crows. “I knew you were a closet sadist. I _knew_ it.”

“And now that you’ve guessed the inner workings of my heart,” Bones says, “you can go back to bed. _Now_. Don’t make me stun you.”

“You couldn’t catch me.”

“You’ve got five broken ribs and a sprained ankle. You want to bet?”

Jim meanders away, muttering.

Later, when Jim’s asleep, Bones sits listening. He listens to the electric hum of the lights. He listens to the ventilator, grumbling away. He listens to the pneumatic hiss of the elevator outside: someone heading back to his or her room in between classes, probably to snatch a quick nap. He listens to the tidal in-and-out sweep of Jim’s breath. He listens to his own heartbeat.

He closes his book. He finds he can’t concentrate now, anyway.

\--

Even before he’s reached their room, he can hear voices.

A woman. No, two women. Giggling.

He stops in the corridor. It’s almost ten at night. He’s just finished a twelve hour shift, during which he almost sent the wrong patient over for a heart transplant; there’s a headache forming just behind his eyes. His shoulders ache. He thinks he might be catching the flu.

Jim’s voice floats out from under the door, telling some sort of amusing story.

For a moment Bones ponders the merits of barging in. After all, technically half of that dorm room is his. If he moves fast enough he would even have sufficient inertia to carry himself directly onto his own bed. Jim – half-plastered – would probably holler at him to join them, but he’s ignored similar invitations in the past enough times to be able to do it again. Never mind the clothes half-strewn all over the carpet. Never mind all that.

Still, in the end, Bones doesn’t do it. He sits down in the corridor. He rests his back against the wall. He pulls his knees up, pillows his cheek on his arms.

He falls asleep to the sound of Jim’s laugh.

\--

The next morning Bones comes across Jim prostrate on the floor, half covered with the sofa cushions.

He nudges Jim’s ankle with his foot. “You look like the murder victim in a serial.”

Jim mumbles something against the carpet. He stirs, briefly. Bones stands looking down at him, trying to massage out a crick in his neck, resisting the overwhelming urge to turn that nudge into a kick.

“I _feel_ like a murder victim,” Jim says finally. “ _God_. Why is it so bright?”

“Because I opened the curtains.”

“No kidding. Why the fuck did you open the curtains?”

“Because the sight of you in pain and suffering reminds me of my ultimate purpose in life,” Bones says. He collapses onto the naked sofa. “If you’ve gotten stains on those cushions again, Jim, I swear to God, I will throw you out of a window.”

“I haven’t gotten any stains on anything,” Jim protests. “I can’t speak for the other two who were here, though.” He groans, flails about a little. “Where were you last night?”

“Me? I slept over at the hospital.”

“You look like shit.”

“Oh stop it, buttercup, you’re making me blush.”

Jim snorts out an unattractive laugh. Then he stops. “Ow. Fuck. Laughing hurts.”

Jim isn’t wearing a shirt. His boxers are slung low and lopsided on his hips. His hair stands up in huge, irregular tufts; the work of fingers, clenching, pulling, tugging. Bones sits with his elbows on his knees and forgets himself for a moment, drinks in the sight of his best friend, his only friend, lying wrecked on the floor of their apartment, covered in bite-marks.

“Stop it,” Jim says, an arm slung protectively over his eyes.

Bones jumps. “What?”

“Stop it,” Jim repeats. “That I’m-so-very-disappointed-in-you look you’re probably wearing right now.”

Bones lets out a breath. His heartbeat slowly, slowly, drifts back to normal. He forces himself to look away; finds Jim’s shirt dangling limply over the armrest.

He tosses it unceremoniously at Jim’s face. “I reserve my disappointment for all those whom I come across in the morning rolling about on the floor in their underwear. While hungover.”

“I’m not hungover.”

“Oh, okay. So I shouldn’t give you any aspirin, then?”

“You’re a bastard,” Jim mumbles, hiding a smile. “You’re a giant fucking bastard and I hate you.”

“Glad to be of service,” Bones says.

\--

“Why do you hang around him?”

Bones looks up, surprised. He’s elbow-deep in paperwork and the question ambushes him, catches him entirely off guard. 

He sets down his pen. “Who?”

“Kirk,” Misha says. “You know. The loud-mouthed one. The troublemaker.”

Bones stares at her. Misha is not the type to ask personal questions. Also, Bones has no idea how to answer the question; has never before given any thought as to _why_. There is no _why_ about him and Jim. They met that first day as recruits and then they just stuck.

“I don’t know,” he finds himself saying. “He’s a bit of a jerk.”

“But you like him.”

“I put up with him. There’s a big difference.”

She smiles at him slyly. “But you don’t put up with people you don’t like, do you? It’s alright. I won’t force the point. I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Curious? Why?”

“You were asleep in the corridor that night Moira and I stayed over.”

A cold jolt goes right through him. This has happened before – Jim has a habit of promising female conquests that he’ll call and then never calling. Some of them mope around the dorm; some of them take the hint and move on; and then, every so often, some of them track down Bones McCoy, Jim Kirk’s best and only friend, and try to use him as a re-entry point.

Misha must sense his panic, because she laughs. “Wow. You look like I’ve pulled a grenade on you.”

“I’m sorry if he hasn’t called – ”

“Relax,” she cuts in. “That’s not what I’m talking about. It was a purely intellectual question. I just wanted to know what you saw in him, is all.”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Sure you do.”

“What about _you_?” he says, trying to turn the conversation. Misha raises a brow. “You went home with him, after all. What did _you_ see in him?”

Misha looks thoughtful. “I suppose most girls go after him for his looks. Or for his charm. He does have _some_ charm,” she adds, when Bones makes a doubtful face. “He’s a smooth talker, and that passes for charm in these parts. But for me – I guess what drew me in was his potential. There’s something about him that tells you he’s not showing you his entire hand. Something telling you that he can do _better_ , much better; but he’s just chosen not to.”

“Back where I come from,” Bones says, dryly, “they call that _failure_.”

“But do you really think that Jim Kirk is a failure?”

Bones opens his mouth, then shuts it.

Misha pats him on the arm. “You see, I think there’s a reason why we’re drawn to him. I mean, we’ve all enlisted in Starfleet. We all want to go into space. But what is space, after all, if it isn’t potential? For all of us, space – the final frontier, all of that – what it truly represents is hope. _That’s_ what we’re chasing. _That’s_ why we’re all hooked on it.”

“But I didn’t want to go into space,” Bones says. He swallows. “I never wanted to go.”

“And yet, you’re still here.” Misha smiles at him.

\--

Bones struggles through the first two days valiantly, with much griping, but on the third day Jim appears to have had enough.

“No,” Jim says, treacherously stealing the textbook away. “For God’s sake, you look like you’re about to die. Do you have any idea how unglamorous it would be, if your last act in this life was to read a chapter on – what even is this? ‘Vaginal discharge in the first trimester’?”

“I’m not dying,” Bones mumbles at him feverishly. “Go away.”

“Have you taken any tablets?”

“It’s a _virus_ ,” Bones explains. He droops forward until he’s half-lying on his desk. “You can’t take antibiotics for a virus. Obviously. What kind of an idiot are you.”

“I thought you had the shot for that,” Jim says, trying to tug him out of the chair.

“Well, I didn’t. And stop pulling at me. If I’m going to die, at least let me die here in peace.”

“I’m all for letting you die,” Jim says, “but if you think I’m letting you die _in peace_ , you’ve got another thing coming. Now, come on. You can lean on me a bit. Let’s get you into bed.”

Bones capitulates. He’s learned now that it’s impossible to argue with Jim. Better to trail behind in the shadows; to loudly and complainingly clean up the mess left behind. He does lean on Jim, and because he is a bastard he leans a bit heavier than necessary, and because he is running a temperature he allows himself to enjoy it. Jim’s skin, cool in comparison to his. The clean profile of Jim’s face. The little scar running underneath Jim’s jaw, courtesy of a bottle in an old bar fight.

“I stitched that up for you,” Bones says, and Jim shoots him a strange look. “Never mind.”

He collapses into bed. He is tired, from all that wanting. He is tired, from chasing what he cannot have.

\--

Bones turns over in bed and accidentally dislodges something.

“Fuck!” comes Jim’s muffled voice. Bones looks over; Jim has fallen out of bed, trailing blankets, tangled in a knot on the floor. Jim groans. “Can’t you even _wake up_ like a normal person?”

“I’m sick,” Bones says. “I’m an invalid. Nothing I do while ill can be properly considered my fault.”

Jim clambers gingerly back onto the mattress. “Ugh. It’s not even five in the morning.”

There’s a jug of water next to the bed. There’s also a thermometer, which Jim must’ve dug out of Bones’ medical bag; a bottle of paracetamol; and several wet face cloths, which Bones vaguely remembers having been placed on his forehead.

“Who would’ve thought,” he says. “You, the nursing type.”

“I liked you better when you were semi-comatose,” Jim mutters.

“Last I heard, it wasn’t standard medical practice to share a bed with your patient.”

Jim snorts. “I hope not. You were thrashing about a bit during the night. I thought about just tying you down to the bed, would’ve saved me a lot of effort, but then I figured things might turn awkward. Rather open to misinterpretation, that one.”

“You’re not worried you’ll catch it from me?”

“What, from _you_? With your lousy immune system?” Jim’s eyes slide shut. “It’s probably not even a proper flu.”

Bones watches him. Bones is always watching. Jim looks peaceful, looks open to suggestion. And so – it’s probably the fever; at least, Bones will blame the fever – he leans over and presses his mouth to Jim’s, just lightly, more a brush than a kiss.

Jim’s eyes snap open immediately. For a long moment, neither of them say anything.

“Shit,” Bones says at last. The panic settles into his spine; he scrambles backward. “ _Shit_. Oh my God. Oh my _God_. I can’t believe – ”

“Hey!” Jim grabs urgently at his arm. “Hey, stop! You’re going to fall off!”

Bones falls off the bed.

There’s silence for another beat.

Then Jim pokes his head over the side. To Bones’ surprise, he’s laughing. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Bones manages.

“Look, I know you like me playing nurse and all,” Jim says, offering him a hand, “but if you’ve broken something, that is way out of my jurisdiction. Also, fractures take a long time to heal. I don’t think I’d be able to put up with you for that long.”

Bones takes in a deep breath. Recovers. “You do remember the last time _you_ broke something – ”

Then he shuts up, because Jim is kissing him.

Again, it’s a light kiss. But because it’s Jim, it snares up all of Bones’ attention. He forgets where he is; forgets what his body is doing. Then Jim pulls away and he settles back into himself: his knees, on the carpet; his hand still in Jim’s hand; a heat that isn’t the fever, isn’t anything to do with it, simmering in his veins. His heart is jackhammering away. He feels lightheaded, like he’s lost a lot of blood.

“So that _does_ shut you up,” Jim says, still grinning. “I always wondered if it would.”

“You – what?”

Jim flops back down on the bed. “What, you think I haven’t noticed the way you look at me? Come on, Bones. I’ve been doing this for years. _You_ haven’t, though, so I wasn’t even sure if you knew. So I thought I’d give you a chance.” He yawns. “Let you make the first move, and all that.”

Bones opens his mouth and finds he doesn’t know what to say.

“Get back in bed,” Jim says at last. “We can talk about this once you’re off the brink of death.”

“I am _not_ on the brink of death – ”

“Nurse says you’re on the brink of death, so you are. Now come here.”

So Bones climbs back into bed.

\--

That night, he dreams about the stars. He dreams about the wide, black expanse of sky: the limitless nature of it, the endless gaps into which he’s never sailed. He dreams about galaxies undiscovered, planets never named, entire civilisations not yet come to light.

That night, he dreams of the beauty of space: the beauty of a world with no horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever Star Trek fic! Based solely on the reboot movie-series - I'm afraid I don't know very much about the previous canon. I've just come out of a two-month Writer's Block, so hopefully this wasn't too rusty. I'm still getting my head around these characters and the universe they're set in, so any feedback at all would be very very welcome ♥
> 
> For updates on any future fics, feel free to add me on [Tumblr](http://epistolica.tumblr.com), [LiveJournal](http://epistolic.livejournal.com), or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/#!/epistolic)! ♥


End file.
